A Haunting In Connecticut

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This is one of the first, “based on a true story,” horror movies to grace the silver screen in a good long time.  A Haunting in Connecticut follows the footsteps of the 1979 The Amityville Horror, which was also based on true events in New York State. The events of A Haunting in Connecticut were told to the writers by the mother of the family who lived through this horrific ordeal.  Each happening was from her recollection which gives the movie an even more believable plot.  A Haunting in Connecticut has been said by some to be the place where Lucifer himself haunted.

The movie is based on a family who had a very sick child dying from cancer in 1987.  The trip to and from Southington for treatment was a long drive for the boy who suffered on his trip back to his home.  The family decided to move closer to the treatment facility, but realized the mortgage on their home and rent would be tough to carry with the heavy medical bills.  They found a home in Southington, where the rent was cheap, mainly because the house was an abandoned funeral home.

Upon arrival, they found a ghastly sight in the basement where her sick son slept.  The room adjacent to his bed was the morgue; inside was left over Formaldehyde, and embalming utensils. There were blood stained walls and floors.  The stainless steel tables where the bodies were cut up and prepped on were still there.  It was not a pleasant sight.

The house had a history of having a medium there, where local survivors of their late family would come to talk to their dead loved ones.  In an attempt to make the seance more effective, the undertaker would cut the eyelids off some of the dead to gain power for their medium; this is where it’s been thought they brought a few nasty demons into the house.  Over time the city realized some of the coffins in the Southington Cemetery were empty because the funeral home never buried people in coffins; instead they were in the home, walled up.

The sick boy was the target of these demons, but in the end, the malevolence moved from the son to the entire family.  The events were so brutal in some cases, the family thought they would die.

This movie depicts all these great events, but does leave some things out.  I was a bit convinced this movie would embellish the truth to make it more horrifying.  After watching A Haunting in Connecticut, I was very impressed to see they didn’t embellish or make things up and it was still just as frightening.  That made this movie all the more better in my eyes.  The only thing they didn’t do was tell the real name of the city; they called it Goatington, when it was really Southington.

A Haunting in Connecticut hits close to home for me.  I lived in Southington, CT from 1979 to 1989.  That summer of 1988, I broke my arm and had a lot of time to watch TV.  The events in that house made the news and front page in The Meriden Record Journal and The Bristol Press.  Her son and I went to the same hospital, and their house was only a few houses away from the Southington Hospital.  In fact, I was only four streets down from this house and I remember the day that the sick son set the place ablaze.  Today that house is still there but looks different from the rebuild.

I would seriously recommend going to see this movie.  It’s frightening, it’s factual and it’s well laid out.  The movie will keep you on the edge of your seat in anticipation of what will happen next.  I give it 5 out of 5 stars.